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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <b><font
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<a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/brazil-indigenous-wajapi-gold-miners-invade-village-social-leader-killed-20190728-0003.html">https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/brazil-indigenous-wajapi-gold-miners-invade-village-social-leader-killed-20190728-0003.html</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Gold Miners Kill Indigenous Leader in
Brazilian Amazon</h1>
Published 28 July 2019</div>
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<p>A remote Indigenous reserve in the Brazilian Amazon was
invaded by gold miners Saturday after they murdered
Emyra Wajapi, a community leader whose body was found
Wednesday. </p>
<p>Around 50 miners invaded the 600,000-hectare Mariri
village as the Wajapi Indigenous community fled in fear
to the bigger village of Aramira. The village chief
Viseni Wajapi said they were attacked by the miners.
“They killed a Wajapi leader. They are at the center of
our land, armed with heavy guards.”</p>
<p>"Our warriors are there," continued the chief. “They
are checking everywhere, how many people are there. We
know there are more than 10, many have already fled.”</p>
<p>Viseni said the miners were assaulting Wajapi women and
children and they have contacted Fundacao Nacional do
Indio (FUNAI), the organization to protect the
Indigenous people of Brazil. The authorities have not
yet taken any action to protect the Wajapis and their
land from the invaders. </p>
<p>“The garimpeiros (miners) invaded the Indigenous
village and are there until today. They are heavily
armed, they have machine guns. That is why we are asking
for help from the federal police,” said Kureni Wajapi,
26, a member of the tribe. </p>
<p>Randolfe Rodrigues, a senator from Amapa state, first
spoke about the invasion Saturday after he received
audio messages pleading for police and army’s help from
a local leader. </p>
<p>For Kureni Wajapi, the invasion is a result of
far-right <a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bolsonaros-Phone-Hacked-Brazil-Police-Make-Arrests-20190725-0027.html"
target="_blank">President Jair </a><a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bolsonaros-Phone-Hacked-Brazil-Police-Make-Arrests-20190725-0027.html"
target="_blank">Bolsonaro</a>’s anti-Indigenous
attitude. “It is because he, the president, is
threatening the Indigenous peoples of Brazil,” he said.</p>
<p>“The Jair Bolsonaro government is encouraging this
conflict, encouraging garimpeiros to enter. Their hands
are dirty,” Senator Rodrigues said.</p>
<p>The Wajapi tribe was almost wiped out in the 1970s due
to disease after their land was invaded by gold miners.
Last week’s invasion was the first one after the ’70s.
Senator Rodrigues said the invasion was possible due to
Bolsonaro’s repeated promise to allow mining in
protected lands. </p>
<p>“I’m looking for the ‘first world’ to explore these
areas in partnership and add value. That’s the reason
for my approximation with the United States,” Bolsonaro
said Saturday.<br>
________________________________________________________</p>
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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/yanomami-amazon-reserve-invaded-by-20000-miners-bolsonaro-fails-to-act/?fbclid=IwAR02hhtQz1zibnVjRKem9WX9E6afiw6vuIIy_tOuRD6GelcEK8HEOfzR1bQ">https://news.mongabay.com/2019/07/yanomami-amazon-reserve-invaded-by-20000-miners-bolsonaro-fails-to-act/?fbclid=IwAR02hhtQz1zibnVjRKem9WX9E6afiw6vuIIy_tOuRD6GelcEK8HEOfzR1bQ</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Yanomami Amazon reserve
invaded by 20,000 miners; Bolsonaro fails to act</h1>
by <a
href="https://news.mongabay.com/by/sue-branford/"
rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal">Sue Branford</a>
on 12 July 2019 </div>
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<ul>
<li><em>An estimated 20,000 illegal
goldminers (garimpeiros) have
entered Yanomami Park, one of
Brazil’s biggest indigenous
reserves, located in Roraima and
Amazonas states, near the border
with Venezuela.</em></li>
<li><em>The miners are well funded,
likely by entrepreneurs, who pay
workers and provide them with
earthmoving equipment, supplies and
airplanes. Three illegal air strips
and three open-pit goldmines are in
operation within the Yanomami
indigenous territory.</em></li>
<li><em>Indigenous leaders blame
President Bolsonaro, with his
incendiary anti-indigenous language,
and his administration, with its
policies that have defunded and
gutted agencies responsible for law
enforcement in the Amazon.</em></li>
<li><em>Bolsonaro claims indigenous
people want mining and industrial
agribusiness on their lands, but the
Yanomami vehemently deny such
desires. They say they want
self-determination over the types of
businesses on their lands. One such
new, sustainable business is a
chocolate concession that would
preserve the rainforest and offer
income.</em></li>
</ul>
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<p>Thousands of goldminers (<em>garimpeiros</em>)
have illegally invaded Yanomami Park, one
of Brazil’s largest indigenous
territories, officially demarcated by the
Brazilian government in 1992, and covering
96,650 square kilometres (37,320 square
miles) of <a
href="https://rainforests.mongabay.com/"
data-wpel-link="external"
target="_blank" rel="external">rainforest</a>
in the states of Roraima and Amazonas,
near the border with Venezuela.</p>
<p>An incursion of this scale has not
occurred for many years, bringing back
memories among indigenous elders of the
terrible period in the late 1980s, when
some 40,000 goldminers moved onto their
land and about a fifth of the indigenous
population died in just seven years due to
violence, malaria, malnutrition, mercury
poisoning and other causes.</p>
<p>Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami leader,
estimates that some 20,000 miners are now
on indigenous land. While the public
perception of such operations is that they
are artisanal or small-scale, they are
typically sophisticated operations. The
current crop of miners are likely
underlings, well-funded and backed by
well-to-do entrepreneurs who pay the
miners or give them a share of production,
while also supplying the workers with
leased dredges, earth movers, and other
heavy equipment, along with airplanes to
fly in supplies and fly out the gold.</p>
<p>The miners are polluting the reserve’s
rivers with mercury and silt, eroding the
river banks, cutting down forest, scaring
away the animals that the Indians hunt,
and destroying fisheries, while inciting
indigenous women into prostitution. Both
the Mucajaí and Uraricoera rivers have
become so polluted that people living in
Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima state,
located 570 kilometers (354 miles)
downstream, have complained about the
deteriorating water quality in their
river, the Rio Branco, which is formed by
the confluence of these two tributaries.</p>
<p>“They are only bringing problems. Malaria
is increasing. It’s already killed four
children in the Marari region,” Kopenawa <a
href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2019/05/invasao-em-terra-indigena-chega-a-20-mil-garimpeiros-diz-lider-ianomami.shtml"
data-wpel-link="external"
target="_blank" rel="external">said</a>.
Malaria is spread by mosquitoes, and
mining creates large stagnant pools of
water, perfect for breeding the insects.</p>
<p>The reserve’s isolated, sometimes
uncontacted, indigenous peoples are also
threatened with potential devastating
impacts, as the miners might infect them
with Western diseases for which they have
no resistance, and that are often fatal.
Three illegal landing strips and three
open-pit mines have been cut out of the
rainforest where isolated indigenous
groups have been seen.</p>
<p>“There are a lot of isolated Indians. I
haven’t met them but I know they will be
suffering.” Kopenawa <a
href="https://www.survivalbrasil.org/povos/yanomami"
data-wpel-link="external"
target="_blank" rel="external">said</a>.
“I want to help my relatives. It is very
important that they are left unmolested to
live on their land.”</p>
<p>Júlio Ye’kuhana, from the Seduume
Association and a representative of the
Ye’kwana, a smaller indigenous group that
lives alongside the Yanomami, told how one
of the indigenous leaders had asked the
miners to leave. But, said Ye’kuhana, the
invaders responded angrily: “They’ve been
making violent threats against him ever
since. So now his community is keeping its
head down. The miners are all armed with
pistols and shotguns.”</p>
<h3><strong>The army departs, enter the
miners</strong></h3>
<p>Until recently, the Brazilian army had
two monitoring bases along the Park’s
largest rivers, the Mucajaí and
Uraricoera, both used by miners as entry
routes. Although the Yanomami complained
that the army did not do enough to keep
miners out, the very existence of these
bases deterred some invaders. But at the
end of last year, the army closed these
bases, saying that its resources were
overstretched by the <a
href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/venezuelan-refugee-crisis-view-brazil"
data-wpel-link="external"
target="_blank" rel="external">tens-of-thousands</a>
of refugees flooding into Brazil from
Venezuela.</p>
<p>With the army gone, the miners took
advantage, swarming unimpeded into
Yanomami Park.</p>
<p>Possibly emboldened by Jair Bolsonaro’s <a
href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/brazils-bolsonaro-presses-anti-indigenous-agenda-resistance-surges/"
data-wpel-link="internal">anti-indigenous
policies</a> and the administration’s
major budget reductions for <a
href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/brazil-guts-environmental-agencies-clears-way-for-unchecked-deforestation/"
data-wpel-link="internal">Amazon law
enforcement operations</a>, the miners
have even dared to set up a village within
the Park in a region called Tatuzão do
Mutum.</p>
<p>The Yanomami believe that, even before
his election, Bolsonaro encouraged the
invasion by talking about his father’s
experience as a goldminer and repeatedly
saying that indigenous groups had too much
land. Then on 17 April, in a <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/jairmessias.bolsonaro/videos/965431323847896/"
data-wpel-link="external"
target="_blank" rel="external">live
interview</a> on Facebook the President,
accompanied by a few Yanomami Indians,
announced that large-scale mining and
extensive monoculture — meaning industrial
agribusiness — should be allowed on
indigenous territory, including Yanomami
Park.</p>
<p>“Indians should not continue to be poor
living above rich land. In Roraima, there
are trillions of reais [Brazilian
currency] under their land, [in the form
of mineral wealth],” Bolsonaro said.</p>
<p>The Yanomami leadership, clearly alarmed
by the President’s statement, reacted
quickly. On 18 April a group of Yanomami
leaders posted a <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/yanomamihutukara/videos/454823555257886/?t=6"
data-wpel-link="external"
target="_blank" rel="external">video</a>
in which they vehemently asserted, in both
Yanomami and Portuguese, that the Yanomami
that had appeared at Bolsonaro’s side were
not representative of any community within
their reserve, and had no authority to
speak for them.</p>
<p>One after another the leaders declared
their total opposition to mining or
commercial farming on their land. “You
[Bolsonaro] say that we are going hungry,”
said Kopenawa. “But it is a lie. None of
us, Yanomami, are going hungry.”</p>
<p>“Gold should remain under the ground,”
declared Roberval, a member of Ayrca,
Maturacá Terra Yanomami, an indigenous
organization. “We want a better income,
but with our own projects.” The leaders
sent a letter to Bolsonaro, expressing
their outrage.</p>
<h3><strong>The sweet promise of help</strong></h3>
<p>Though the government has not responded
to that letter, the federal indigenous
agency, FUNAI, has said that it will be
re-opening bases in Yanomami territory
closed because of budget cuts. It <a
href="http://www.funai.gov.br/index.php/comunicacao/noticias/5451-funai-anuncia-reabertura-de-bases-de-protecao-na-terra-indigena-yanomami?start=1"
data-wpel-link="external"
target="_blank" rel="external">stated</a>
in May: “One of the bases will be reopened
in three months’ time and by 2020 all of
them will be fully functioning again,
employing Indians and FUNAI staff and
collaborating with employees from other
state institutions.”</p>
<p>But indigenous communities haven’t stood
idle waiting for government assistance.
One innovative economic initiative is very
new — chocolate making. The enterprise got
underway in an indigenous village located
just a few miles away from Tatuzão do
Mutum, so-called because the big open-pit
mine created there by about a thousand
miners resembles the shell of a tatuzão, a
giant armadillo.</p>
<p>Some Ye’kwana leaders realized that the
standing forest offered another form of
“gold” —cacao. Although cacao is endemic
to the region, indigenous people have
traditionally consumed the sweet flesh in
the large orange cacao pods and thrown
away the seeds, from which chocolate is
made. Once they became aware of the market
potential of high-quality connoisseur
chocolate, they set about developing their
own delectable brand.</p>
<p>In July 2018, Ye’kwana and Yanomami
leaders organized a workshop, involving
one Ye’kwana and 13 Yanomami communities.
With the support of the Socioenvironmental
Institute (ISA), an NGO, they brought in
chocolate makers to advise on how best to
collect the seeds, process them and make
chocolate. One visitor was César de
Mendes, a small-scale manufacturer who
specializes in Amazon chocolates. He was
delighted to discover two varieties of
cacao in the Park, one of which was
completely new to him. He believes that
the Indians may be able to launch a novel
brand, with its own distinctive flavor. At
the end of the 10-day workshop, indigenous
participants produced their first ever bar
of chocolate, and celebrated with a
triumphant, intercommunity party. Regular
production is expected to begin this year.</p>
<p>The additional income their high-end
chocolate provides will be very welcome in
indigenous villages. Because the miners
have polluted local rivers, many people
are now being forced to develop artesian
wells, which can cost money to construct.
Also, young Indians are keen to buy mobile
phones and trainers, so are tempted away
by the money offered by miners. For those
and other reasons, chocolate-making may
well prove a lifeline for indigenous
communities while also giving consumers
across Brazil, and elsewhere, a chance to
buy a delicious product that helps
conserve the <a
href="https://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/"
data-wpel-link="external"
target="_blank" rel="external">Amazon
forest</a>.</p>
<p>But the threat of encroaching mining
operations still looms, and if not
curtailed by law enforcement, will remain
a dark shadow hanging over Yanomami lands
and hopes.</p>
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